


Hold Out Hope

by orphan_account



Category: Dangan Ronpa 3: The End of 希望ヶ峰学園 | The End of Kibougamine Gakuen | End of Hope's Peak High School, Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: Alternate Universe - Non-Despair (Dangan Ronpa), Emotional Hurt, F/F, Hospitalization, Hospitals, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Not Beta Read, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Sick Character, Unresolved Emotional Tension
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2020-03-12
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:00:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21999376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Nagito Komaeda has been sick almost as long as he can remember. He's all too aware that he's living on borrowed time, pushing people away as a result. That is until his best friend Mikan and a boy he just met help him out of his shell. However, there are no garuntees in life, least of all a happy ending....but is it wrong for Nagito to dream?
Relationships: Hinata Hajime/Komaeda Nagito, Nanami Chiaki/Tsumiki Mikan, Other Relationship Tags to Be Added
Kudos: 31





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Listen, this is my first hospital fic. I dont know much about lung related terminal illnesses so I made up my own. Also; much of this fic is a 'read at your own risk'. I'll try to carefully tag things and leave warnings at the beginnings of chapters, but you have been given fair warning, therefore if you read my fic willingly and something upsets you; sorry. This is your chance to back out.

Monday, August 31st, 12:07pm.

God what a drag of a day. Then again that was every day, with my luck. Though I suppose I can’t complain too much. If I hadn’t ever been sick I wouldn’t have gotten to meet Mikan, who’s been my best friend of 5 years now. Speaking of her, she pulls me out of my spacing out. I sat up straighter from leaning over the table and ignoring my lunch.

“Nagito? Hello? You still with us?” She jokes quietly.

“Hm? Yeah I’m fine, just spacing out like usual,” I chuckled. I did have a tendency to do that after all.

“You scare me every time you do that, you know,” she huffed.

I suppose that would make sense, she’s training to be a nurse after all. Naturally she’d worry about my health...even if I didn’t. She sighs and starts rambling about class, and what she and Seiko had been getting up to. I quietly looked over her shoulder, about to space out again, that was until a pair of green eyes caught my gray ones. The boy staring at me seemed like he was staring over his friend’s shoulder as she played video games. He was tan and had messy hair, but not like mine. His was intentionally messy. Mine was...a curly trainwreck if I’m honest. He smiled at me and I turned my attention back to Mikan, my face warming up.

Mikan, unfortunately, took notice and turned around to see who I could possibly be staring at. She then glanced back at me. I hid my face, sure I was as red as a tomato at this point. I glanced up from my hands to see her giving me a devilish grin.

“Were you just staring at one of the new volunteers?”

_Fuck._

“Excuse me?” I asked back, almost wheezing out of both shock and a medical inability to breathe.

“Yeah, Hajime and Chiaki barely started volunteering here a little bit ago, did you not know?”

“Mikan, your parents are kind enough to pay for me to stay in my room sick all the time. Of course I didn’t know!”

“You don’t stay in your room because you’re sick Nagito, you do it because you’re depressed.”

Her tone became sharp and her expression deadpan. I couldn’t argue to that because well...it was true. I was practically waiting to die. Then again, living on borrowed time has not been a pleasant experience. Not too long after my parents died Mikan’s parents took me in...and a few years after that I had been diagnosed with Latus Disease. I’ve been in and out of the hospital ever since I was 8. However Mikan did have a point, laying around hooked up to an oxygen tank and glued to a TV wasn’t exactly living. I guess deep down I didn’t want to get to know people because I’d just hurt them in the end. Ever since life became like this I stopped talking to all my old friends except for Mikan.

“I worry about you, you know,” Mikan spoke up again. “You should try to talk to him, get his number or something. Hajime seems like he wants to get to know you and you shouldn’t let life pass you by like that.”

“I should but...he probably won’t like me anyway.”

Almost as soon as I said that I glanced up and Hajime was still smiling at me. I grinned back, and he stood up, as if I had summoned him or something. Mikan glanced back at what I was now worriedly staring at before she smiled back at me. “Good luck,” she winked, standing up with her food, seeming like she was planning to go somewhere else.

“Don’t leave me here!” I quietly protested before Hajime appeared by the table. Mikan couldn’t leave me dead in the water with a cute guy! She wouldn’t! Right? I wouldn’t leave her alone with a girl so she better not abandon me here!

Hajime smiled at her. “Hey Mikan, is this seat taken?” He gestured to the seat across from mine. I could feel butterflies as I desperately turned my head to look at Mikan, silently begging her to stay.

She smiled sweetly and at that moment I knew her answer. She was going to leave me here to die of a heart attack before Latus ever got to me. “Nope, all yours,” came the high pitched voice before she wandered over to the table with the strawberry blonde who was completely sucked into her Gameboy. Mikan tricked me so she could go talk to a girl! How could she?! How could anyone be that cold hearted?!

Hajime plopped himself down in the seat in front of me and waved slightly. “Hi, I’m Hajime Hinata...the guy you were staring at five minutes ago.”

“You were staring back,” I pointed out lightheartedly, “I’m Nagito Komaeda.”

"Nice to meet you Nagito, Mikan's told me a lot about you," God even his voice was perfect. Why did Mikan leave me here?

“Really? Like what?” I asked. I wasn’t exactly an exciting person to talk about.

“She told me that you liked to read, watch TV, she told me that you need to make friends.”

I scowled. So she had set this up. Well she wasn’t wrong, but she didn’t understand why she was my only friend. Anyone around me was going to get hurt, it was just a fact of life. I didn’t want that… to leave people with nothing but a sense of grief. So I pushed people away before I could.

Hajime spoke up again, pulling me out of my thoughts. “However, she didn’t tell me you were this cute,” a smirk grew on his face and I turned bright red.

How was I supposed to respond to that? I had never been flirted with before so I didn’t exactly have anything witty to respond with, other than a cough because my shitty lungs felt even less functional at the moment. He giggled and I sighed, cracking a smile myself.

“So why don’t you tell me about your favorite book, how about your favorite movie?”

“Um-” I began, smooth as ever, “I don’t really have favorites. They’re too hard to pick,” I answered.

“Okay, how about what are you reading right now?” He asked sweetly.

“It’s a murder mystery. Some rich guy was killed and his body was found face down in his pool, so now this novice detective has to find the killer,” I explained.

Hajime grinned at me. “Last movie you watched?”

“Donnie Darko for probably the millionth time,” I responded. “Mikan hates it because it creeps her out, but she doesn’t realise the beauty of it I guess.” I shrugged. Mikan got scared too easily by movies anyway. However nothing in the real world could scare her, which was beyond my knowledge but whatever. I personally, was more scared of things that existed. Like death. Ironic in the worst way I suppose.

“You should show it to me sometime,” Hajime replied. He seemed serious, and I quite honestly didn’t know how to respond.

“Well it is a movie best watched in the dark and I don’t think you can stay here overnight…” I began to think out loud. “I’d have to ask Mikan’s parents if I could go home for a little bit..”

“Or you could give me your number and let me know when you’re available,” Hajime pointed out calmly, not a hint of flirting in his voice. I blushed anyway. I am NOT crushing on a boy I had barely met. No way. Not when I’m sick and can’t get into a relationship.

I nodded as though that should have been obvious. “Yeah, yeah probably, can I see your phone for a second then?”

He smiled and nodded, handing me his phone with a sly wink. Now he was flirting. I glanced over at Mikan, who seemed to be talking with the strawberry blonde. How the hell did she get that girl to put down her game? The thing had been practically glued to her hand. Hajime noticed me looking over there apparently.

“Mikan and Chiaki seem to be getting along pretty well, huh?” he mumbled, slightly annoyed about something. I couldn’t quite place what it was.

I nodded and typed my number into his phone before standing up and heading back to my room. That had been enough socialization for the day. However I wouldn't lie and say I wasn't looking forward to watching a movie with a cute boy


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Hajime has no self confidence and cant text a boy he can flirt with. Luckily Chiaki has the easy solutions to all of Hajime's problems

_Monday, August 31st, 1:03pm_

The car bumped and shook lightly as Chiaki drove me home. Chiaki was always a little bit of a scary driver if I was honest, but she was nowhere near the worst. I also wasn’t really focusing on her driving, I was staring down at my phone, and the blank screen with nothing but Nagito’s name as a header as I thought about what to say to him.

“You’re trying to text that boy aren’t you?” Chiaki asked, seemingly out of nowhere. She was always oddly attentive when she really wanted to be.

I chuckled back nervously, nodding even if she couldn’t see it. “It’s more like coming up with a loss for words, seriously I don’t know what to say to him at all.”

“Hello might be useful, just a suggestion,” she teases back, and I feel my face heat up in embarrassment.

What Chiaki only halfway understood, was that you do not greet a cute boy with an awkward, far to impersonal ‘hi’. However, I actually had no idea what else to say to him, even after flirting with him for the better part of an hour. Backwards ass logic I know, but I guess I’m more confident in person. That is, if I could be considered confident at all. In all my 16 years of life I hadn’t done anything I was proud of or thought was particularly noteworthy. I got average grades, average video game scores, average artistic skills, and average everything else. I was a background character in my own life.

I stared at the blank screen before giving up and texting a ‘hi’ as Chiaki suggested.

I also then put my phone away, assuming Nagito would be too busy to text me back anyhow. Or maybe he wasn’t, I just don’t think I’d get a reply from a guy like him anyway. I don’t really think I warrant a response from anyone. It really is a wonder I have friends: even if I met most of them through my twin brother.

My phone buzzes and I check it immediately. Nagito actually responded that quickly? I almost can’t believe it. Then again he probably doesn’t have much else to do, just from what Mikan told me. It’s still not like I’m all that special to him or anything. 

**[Nagito]:** Hi, you better not be driving :)

I couldn’t really help but chuckle even if that wasn’t intentional. Nagito was just that cute and funny even if he wasn’t trying to be I guess. I don’t know if I’d actually survive a date with someone that objectively better than me.

**[Me]:** Hi, I’m not, I’m with Chiaki...not that that’s any safer

I might as well at least try to joke back right? Hopefully he finds it funny. I’m not the greatest at jokes over the phone. Or maybe I am. I just can’t find the confidence to say that.

“Stop stressing,” Chiaki demanded, clearly able to tell that something was wrong. She really was able to see right through me. “Just be yourself, because he clearly likes you.”

“He liked those five second of confidence I had when I talked to him,” I pointed out. Sometimes I really was too pessimistic for my own good. No matter how hard I tried to be realistic it was so much easier to do that to make other people feel better.

“Call him then,” She suggested bluntly. Sometimes she thought the solution to a problem was more straightforward than it really was. I couldn’t understand how the answers came so easy to her sometimes. As much as I don’t want to admit it, part of me is really jealous of her for that.

“I’ll call him later, I can’t do it now or he’ll think I’m weird.”

“Call him tonight or I call him for you.” She decided once again. She knew I wouldn’t commit to it if I just promised that I would now.

“Fine,” I huffed, falling silent and turning to stare out the window, sick of the conversation we were having.

I could hear the smile and her shaking her head in her exhale as we pulled up to my driveway. "I'll see you tomorrow Hajime."

"Yeah, I'll see you," I agree as I slide out of her car and wave.

I may not see her until tomorrow but I'll definitely end up hearing from her tonight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah! I'm sorry this took so long to update! Late winter is just such a bad time! I'm also not super pleased with the quality of this chapter but for the overload of work I have this should be good. I hope you guys liked it too


End file.
